Even an ugly day sometimes ends beautifully...hang in there-

                                      
                           even an ugly day sometimes ends beautifully...hang in there-

COMFORT

Oh my,

the breeze this day feels like

forgiveness.

This soft, overcast blanket 

of comforting grayness carries me 

to a saner perception of life and of myself. 

No black or white,

No longer wrong or bad

nor good and right,

I wrap myself with this blanket of acceptance

far from the harshness of self 

loathing judgments. 

Everyone is doing the best they can

at all times

no matter how bad it looks. 

Without realizing it, we are dragging our feet

And resisting the inevitable evolving

That we are here for.

Fear

Is the stopper

Every time

Fear

Keeps us

Frozen in place

Fear

Scares us back

Into our minds

Where we

Confuse

Ourselves

Trying to understand

In order to

Create

Safety

From fear.

There is no

Going around or under

Fear

The you you are becoming

Waits on the other side

Of this fear.

Go through the fear

And into the great relief

Of your larger loving self.

Invisible Acts of Love

The way the soft, silent morning air

kisses your flesh so lightly,

worry flees.

A rippling pond at sunrise

Reflects a vast blue sky

 announcing a new day 

filled with promise and 

possibilities as endless as the sky itself.

The crowns of palms stirring light 

reminds you of your own regal height.

as a small bird lands nearby and twittering

bids you a joyous welcome

to this very moment.

Asleep and unseen yet, 

your lover

makes the coffee strong the way you like it

as the last star fades overhead,

light dissolving into light 

reminding you of your own brief breath,

and your infinite, eternal nature.

Do not miss these invisible acts of love,

Notice how blessed and glorious

 we truly are.

WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN...WHEN WILL WE EVER, LEARN.

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I watched a homeless man wash himself and shampoo his hair with Palmolive Dish Detergent this morning while taking my morning bicycle ride along side San Diego Harbor. You see a lot of homeless folks, mostly men in this area napping in a spot of shade alongside their entire world stacked up in a shopping cart. The more affluent ones have old bicycles themselves.

It is so very beautiful along the bay here: downtown buildings in the background to a bay dotted with moored and docked sailboats, fishing boats and tourist excursion ships. An almost constant breeze blows in off the ocean and today there were puffy clouds parallel to and floating idly over the mountains to the east.

I thought to myself that this must be one of the finest cities to be a homeless person in. The weather is at its worst times, survivable and far more frequently a comfy, dry 72 degrees.  To have a public bathroom with an outside shower (presumably to wash the salt off swimmers and surfers) is a wonderful gift to those who have no home to clean themselves in.

I used to pull up to intersections and either shake my head “no” or look away if there was someone requesting spare change. I’d heard that often they spend this money on booze, cigarettes or drugs and it’s better to give them a hamburger than a dollar. I don’t know about you, but I rarely have a hamburger sitting on my dash board keeping warm for the first handout of the day. But hey-I’ve changed my thinking.

If I was living on the street, sleeping outside in parks, doorways, deserted buildings and the like I would probably choose some hard liquor or drug over food often. Why? Because at least I would temporarily become artificially but experientially content for a brief while.  And happiness on occasion should and would take precedence over nutrition at times. Who am I to control what they do with a contribution I’m willing to make?  And further, who am I to ignore them and look the other way while sitting in my comfy air conditioned car. I have way more than the essentials of food, clothes, safety and space to live and sleep and even bath.

There are a number of gentle climates that attract the destitute who live outdoors but there are few if any services or considerations for these unfortunates who have no home and perhaps even the greater hardship of having no family-not a single brother or aunt or relative to turn to for support, for love.

Would it really be too expensive to provide areas for the homeless to congregate and sleep? Would it be too expensive for a city to allocate a few dollars to providing public bathrooms where the poor can clean and relive themselves? We surely can afford to provide security in the form of volunteer social workers in set aside parks or just areas of parks where people can legally assemble and simply survive.  We have parks built just for dogs but not for people. Why is this? How is this possible?

The poor and homeless are not alone in what we turn our backs on; we turn away more and more from the obvious blatant corruption in politics, banking, and corporations. We know clearly the injustices perpetrated daily on those at the bottom of the socio-economic level. We sit and do and say little or nothing when it comes to light that another politician has abused his position and privilege, or when corporations tell their bought politicians what legislature to write and pass; legislation that furthers the aims of most of the top 1% in the U.S. Police incidents get more and more out of control and nothing is done. The media is owned and controlled by big money getting bigger. The news has become one long commercial, biased, fear based and meant to either convince the majority that everything is really okay and just or acquit the greed and evil it nurtures turning man against men-against women, against immigrants, etc.

I bring this up because if we don’t stop looking the other way…if we don’t stop our apathetic response to horrible injustices then they will continue to grow. We condone crime at the highest whitest level in this country.  In God we trust but in money we REALLY TRUST. 

Now back to the bottom of the barrel. Maybe there isn’t much that we can do separated from one another which is exactly the strategy of politico-corporate affairs because we have become divided by the powers that be. And without a united cause, we will remain complacent; throw out hands up in the air and order another drink. Or turn on the tube for sedation.

I know that we can afford to put a few bucks towards making the poor slightly cared for. With the wealth of this country it is a travesty that we allow anyone to be homeless here. It is unjustifiable. That argument that the poor are just “lazy” is a weak lie at best but one many of us lean toward believing because it relieves us of our own guilt and human obligation to care for our neighbors, our fellow humans. It would be so easy to erase corporate loopholes and collect far greater taxes that could provide support to society as a whole. Education and social services should be more important than controlling the cost and availability of oil for obscene profiteering.

It’s hard to find a place to stop because the inhumanness rampant in our culture must be addressed!

But then again, we have all been told and taught to “look the other way” in this super duper culture of opportunity. Oh yes, we have opportunity and opportunists who take advantage of their privileged color and connections, and family ties.

This world of people operates almost everywhere as it always has through out history. We have kings and emperors and rulers in every society that hoard the wealth and ignore the common folk. We have armies and knights and warriors trained to defend the best interests of that ruling class. One thing the poor and the rich agree upon is that Money decides what laws are written and what people have advantage and the rest of the peons who don’t. An occasional success story about some ghetto kid who climbed out poverty and violence into opulence is meant to prove to us that most poor are just lazy. They do drugs and join gangs and kill and steal from one another.  Well, if I were the great great grandson of a black cotton picking slave abducted from his home and enslaved and yet went to school and graduated and discovered that it isn’t who you are that matters but who you know…well, I’d probably turn to drugs and/or violence too. Ya know, sometimes force is justified because it is the only way to fight all that is so very wrong.

Short of individual enlightenment and a spiritual awakening to the truth that we are all of one family, this species of humans that we are-none of our practices on either end of the scale will ever change this nation or this world into a place that supports the quality of life for ALL people.

We are well on our way to hitting our bottom like any addict must do before he is faced with a decision to turn his life around or just wither, let go and die.  America is addicted to money and consumption. We are addicted to having the latest and greatest. We are concerned about keeping up with our affluent neighbors. We buy so much more than is needed or even used. Just like any individual addict, our culture reflects our values and we are a frighten people here in America.  We have always been afraid that there wasn’t enough to go around so better race out there and grab your share while it’s still there. Compete instead of collaborate.  Ahhhh-shit. Ask the American Indians how compassionate and generous the Europeans who stole their country and lives away, were.  Well, that’s where many of us came from. Question is….where the hell are we going?